Saturday, 10 January 2009

A freelancer's worst nightmare

Generally freelancers get paid reasonably well but today summed up all the bad points of going freelance rather than being on a staff contract.

I was up at 9am (which is really early for me these days considering my usual working pattern especially after I left the office last night at 1am), showered, dressed and thought I'd just check which matches had been called off.

I was about to leave for Doncaster v Bristol City, when I saw OFF against the fixture on BBC. I thought there must have been some kind of mistake given how certain Donny where that the fixture would be on yesterday. But no, Doncaster's official website confirmed the bad news: "An incredibly heavy overnight frost was of such strength, that the cold has gone below the heavy duty plastic covers and solidified the Keepmoat Stadium's playing surface."

A match off means no money for a freelancer and it also meant that for the first football Saturday since April, I had no game to go to. That and three quarters of the League Two programme being called off (a league I work on for another company and subsequently don't get paid for previews if matches are postponed or abandoned) meant it was a pretty bad day.

So what did I do with my Saturday off? My house got a well deserved clean and I watched Soccer Saturday while working out on the treadmill at the gym.

Now I know how those managers sent on "gardening leave" feel!

1 comment:

Chris McKenna said...

This is a great point and thus highlights one of the bad parts of being a freelancer. However, it could be worse it could have been called off just before kick off and it would have been a wasted journey as well!